


Demourer

by honeybao



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, I haven't read call down the hawk, M/M, also happy 4/20 y'all, no beta we die like richard campbell gansey the third, only rated teen cause Ronan says fuck i think, passive voice scrambles my eggs in the morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23756605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybao/pseuds/honeybao
Summary: Adam looks out onto the Barns in front of him. The sun filters through leaves, spotlighting patches of green grass and clouds of butterflies. He sees Ronan sitting on the porch, watching Opal eat dandelions and dirt.What do you want, Adam?He can't always answer that question. He can't always voice or understand his own desires. He can't always find the right words, but whatever it is, however he's supposed to say it, it's something like this.~orAdam helps Ronan repaint his parents' bedroom, and maybe understands a little more about himself along the way.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	Demourer

He wanted to get used to this. (He wanted a lot of things, actually, but this one was at the top. Or, maybe not at the top, but very close. Let's call it second place.) He wanted to get used to how the roof dug into his back, how the sun kissed his cheeks and how the wind whistled gently though his hair. He wanted to get used to the feeling of ladybugs and butterflies and dream things tickling his nose and fingers, thinking his vibrancy and stillness meant he was a plant. He wanted to get used to the sound of Ronan making breakfast in the morning, the sound of Opal chewing on her utensils instead of the breakfast, and the sound of Ronan chastising her for it.

But he also wanted Harvard. And he has Harvard. In his hands. His. And seeing Ronan on breaks and long weekends wasn't enough, but it was all they had. And Adam was drowning in his schoolwork, but it was worth it. And he wanted the Barns almost as much as he wanted Harvard, but the Barns would have to wait.

Ronan says they're patient. That they're used to waiting.

Adam heard the window open, the sound too slow and gentle to startle him. Without opening his eyes, Adam drawled out a greeting, "Mornin', Opal."

She hummed, tugging lightly on his t-shirt. He looked to her, her hair was getting longer - Ronan refuses to touch it until she gives him permission - and it billowed out from her skull cap, just getting passed her shoulder blades now. She was taller, too, taller than she had any right to be. Adam wondered how old she was. He had asked Ronan, once, but he just said that she was always there in the forest with him since he was a kid, which didn't settle well with Adam at all, so he ignored that answer.

"Kerah." She said now, pointing down the hall to where Adam assumed Kerah - Ronan - was.

Adam shifted to face her properly, "Does he need something?"

"You."

Adam wanted to get used to that, too.

He climbed in through the window, Opal rushing down the hall before him. He followed her to Ronan's parents' old room, where Ronan stood tall and square at the entrance, unmoving.

"Ronan?" Adam asked gently, knowing he couldn't look at this room without remembering the blood that pooled around his father and mother at their respective deaths. It was unfair that he had to watch them both die, but 'unfair' was a pretty accurate way to describe a lot of things that happened in their lives.

Ronan showed Adam three paint color cards. "Skylight, Gentleman's Gray, or Polaris Blue?" He articulated each word pompously, like he was at a Gansey Dinner Party.

Adam laughed, "What are you doing?"

"The Barns are perfect everywhere except here." He said simply. And it was true, he had cleared out every one of Niall's dreams and every piece of trash, and the Barns was an actual, functional farm now. The only place untouched was this.

Adam considered Ronan; he had a firm stance but a calm brow, a tight grip on the color cards but a resigned expression on his face. He nodded, "Gentleman's Gray on two adjacent walls, Polaris Blue on the other two, Skylight on the ceiling."

Ronan squinted at him.

"What? Boyd's wasn't my only job."

"I didn't just spend an hour going through Benjamin-fucking-Moore's paint portfolio for you to just shrug and tell me to use all of them."

Adam laughed, and when he saw the crease in Ronan's eyebrows soften, his chest bubbled up more giddy laughter. "How about we worry about the paint after we clear out the room?" They both looked across it, the place filled with pictures and dream things. "There's a lot to go through before painting is even an option."

Ronan nodded, but they didn't stay in his parents' room for long. They worked until lunch, the rest of the day spent on the couch, wrapped up in each other. A lot of breaks were like this, just hours of warmth and nothing and sleep, all the things that Harvard couldn't give him. It was weeks at his college that made Adam forget how gentle Ronan was capable of being. How easy his fingers slipped through Adam's hair, how firm he could be without ever being harmful, how much he wanted Adam. But it was days like this that reminded him. Days where Ronan didn't let Adam's mind wander too far from his fingers and lips, didn't let his mouth remember anything other than 'Ronan', didn't let Adam's body stray too far from his.

There was a lot the two of them had yet to figure out, and they didn't always have the easy relationship that Blue, Henry, and Gansey have (though Adam thinks that has more to do with how outspoken Blue is and how earnest Henry is, Gansey is still too much like Ronan and Adam, but those other two balance it out.) But Adam has no misconceptions about who is his, and more importantly, who Ronan is. They weren't perfect, they weren't each other's panacea, and they weren't always kind... but they knew each other. There were times when Adam felt like Ronan knew him better than he knew himself. And there was something so intimate and terrifying and addicting about being so wholly known, with all his mistakes and horrors and habits, he was _known_ and Ronan still wanted him.

Before Adam left for his first year at Harvard, he was spending time with Blue at 300 Fox Way. She was making some clothes for her oncoming Venezuela trip, so her room was covered in fabrics and sewing materials. Adam hadn't done much clothes making, but they talked and he fiddled with some strips of leather from a previous project. He entwined them into a bracelet and, with an annoying blush, realized that the pattern was similar to the ones around Ronan's wrist. It wasn't purposeful; it was just what his fingers wanted.

_"You should give that to him. Like a parting gift."_

Later that week, Adam did give it to Ronan. Or, more specifically, he tied it around Ronan's wrist as he slept, because that, for some reason, was easier back then. But at the time, Adam had just scoffed at her, Blue made it sound like he was never coming back. In retrospect, he kind of didn't. The first year of Harvard had Adam in a frenzy. He didn't just want to go to Harvard, he wanted to thrive - breaks were spent studying, weekends were spent with clubs. It wasn't until summer that Adam's feet touched Virginia's soil once again.

And it wasn't until Adam rolled up to the Barns, visit unannounced, that he knew Ronan realized where the bracelet had even come from. Ronan wasn't there at the time, probably out with Gansey (was Gansey in the country?), or grocery shopping. Adam had no idea what they had been up to; he was so wrapped up in school that they had barely talked. And even more than that, Adam was exhausted, he missed his bed almost as much as he missed his friends. He wandered into Ronan's room, collapsing into his bed and throwing the covers over himself. It didn't take him long to leave consciousness.

When he woke up, Ronan was with him. He sat up, looking down at the awake Ronan looking up at him. _"G'morning."_

Ronan answered with his mouth against his.

It was quite a while before Adam had a chance to notice how the Barns had changed. It was cleaner, less broken, less filled with sleeping animals. But one of the more confusing things was a pile of leather bracelets in the corner of Ronan's room.

_"Why do you have all of these?"_

Ronan hadn't wanted to answer at first, _"Because sometimes I dream about you. And sometimes stuff like the bracelet you gave me comes out."_

_"How did you know it was me?"_

_"That's a stupid question."_

And it was. It wouldn't take a lot of thought to pin Adam as the culprit, he just didn't know what to say or do about the fact that Ronan dreams about him. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but after so long of not seeing each other, the truth of it shook Adam.

_"I'll help you clean them up, then."_

_"No."_

_"Why not? You don't need dozens of them."_

_"They're insurance."_

_"Insurance?"_

Ronan sighed then, _"If I didn't want them, then I wouldn't have kept them."_

And now, two years later, Adam looks at Aurora and Niall Lynch's bedroom, and then at their son, standing in the wreckage of it. Adam separated everything into three piles: trash, donate, keep. Ronan separated everything into two: trash, donate. Every item they picked up had a story, and more time was spent on Ronan retelling details and memories than it was actually cleaning the room. But Adam didn't mind, Ronan was a good storyteller.

It takes them two days to clear the room and get everything in a dumpster or a charity. They were leisurely about it, in no rush to finish their only set task for the summer. Painting took even longer, especially with their unfortunate paint fights. They always started simple enough -- like with a finger wiping a line of paint across a cheek or a handprint somewhere suggestive -- but they always ended with their clothes in the washing machine and paint on the shopping list. It might have frustrated Adam, once, to waste so much money on unused products, but Ronan was enjoying himself. Every time he dipped his hand into the paint tub, his shoulders would ease a little more. Every time he drew shapes on Adam's pants or shirt or skin, his brows would relax a little more. And every wall covered in a new shade of blue would bring something like satisfaction or pride into Ronan's eyes. And that, Adam decided, was priceless.

Once they had finished decorating, after almost a week of working, they plopped onto the bed with matching exhausted sighs.

"This can be yours. If you want it." Ronan says like he was telling Adam the color of the sky or what he ate for dinner.

"What can be mine?" _You? This room? The Barns?_

Ronan turned to look down at him, arms still behind his head. "For when you come home from Harvard."

"Come home..." Adam echoed, barely realizing Ronan hadn't answered his question. This really had become his home, hadn't it? There was no point in renting his apartment above Saint Agnes since he was at school and wanted nothing to do with Henrietta. If Adam ever came back during breaks, it was always to the Barns or to Monmouth. "What about your room?"

"What about it?"

"Are you going to give it to Opal?"

"She doesn't like rooms." Ronan tsked, as if they had argued about this before. "Rooms make her feel cornered."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I want it." Adam stated, surprised that it was true. Completely and fully true. "I want this room. I want to come home to you and Opal and the Barns." It was hard to stop. "I want-"

Ronan's gaze was heavy; he was paying attention.

"I want this."

Ronan leaned back onto his arms once more, eyes traveling back to the Skylight Blue ceiling. 

"Then you can have it."


End file.
